October 22, 2019 1:07PM PT Disney has been offering advance signups for Disney Plus for several weeks — and just announced a big new pact with Verizon giving the telco’s unlimited wireless customers free access to Disney Plus for one year. As it turns out, those who got in early on Disney Plus will still
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Amazon officially announced its long-rumored ad-supported news video service Tuesday. The new service will be available on Fire TV devices as well as Fire tablets, and rely on videos from publishers including CBS News, Reuters, Huffington Post, Bloomberg, People, Cheddar and others. News coverage served up through the app includes livestreams as well as on-demand
Marvel’s Wolverine, Hawkeye, Black Widow and Star-Lord — and potentially more characters down the road — are getting their own podcasts on SiriusXM and Pandora. SiriusXM and Marvel Entertainment announced a multiyear pact under which Marvel will create a “substantial amount” of exclusive podcasts for SiriusXM and Pandora, including both scripted and unscripted series and
Quibi latest idea about “essential” daily programming? A hopped-up, rapid-fire dispatch about video games and gamer culture. The mobile subscription-video startup, led by founder Jeffrey Katzenberg and CEO Meg Whitman, ordered a daily culture and gaming news show from Vox Media’s Polygon. The yet-to-be-titled series will span headlines, trend deep-dives, first-look previews of new game
Netflix investors, already skittish about the looming entry of Disney and Apple into the competitive streaming space, pushed the stock down as much as 4% in morning trading Tuesday. The drop came after Verizon announced a deal with Disney to offer Disney Plus for 12 months free to all unlimited wireless customers and new Fios
Amazon Studios has greenlit a German comedy series titled “The Bedfellow” (“Der Beischläfer”) starring comedian Markus Stoll, who is popular locally for playing a funny guy named “Harry G” who satirizes life in his native Bavaria. Shooting has started in Munich on the six-part series, which is directed by Anna-Katharina Maier (“Die Klempnerin”) and produced
Discovery launched Food Network Kitchen, its biggest direct-to-consumer streaming play to date, in the U.S. with a programming lineup that includes 25 live cooking shows each week. For the initial launch, Discovery is offering a 90-day free trial period Food Network Kitchen, along with a limited-time discounted price of $47.99 per year ($4 per month).
Verizon is giving away Disney Plus — the Mouse House’s new streaming service debuting next month — free for one year to all of its wireless customers on unlimited-data plans, under a broad new partnership between the two companies. When Disney Plus launches Nov. 12, the telco will begin offering 12 months of the video-streaming
Discovery is making a free-streaming play in the U.K. and Ireland with the launch of Dplay. The ad-supported service launches this week. It will be programmed with content from Discovery’s bouquet of free-TV channels in the U.K., which includes Quest, Food Network, and former UKTV brands Really and Home. The lineup of launch titles includes:
Location-based virtual reality startup Sandbox VR has raised an additional $11 million from an illustrious round of funders including Orlando Bloom, Will Smith, Justin Timberlake, Katy Perry, Kevin Durant, Michael Ovitz and soccer star Keisuke Honda. The new funding round, which brings the total raised by the company to $83 million, comes just weeks ahead
Facebook, after getting raked over the coals for the role it played in spreading disinformation and propaganda during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, outlined several new steps it’s taking ahead of the 2020 election season. Among its new measures: Facebook has banned paid ads that suggest voting is useless or that urge people not to
Doug Scott is leaving as game company Zynga’s marketing boss to become Twitch’s CMO. Scott assumes the CMO role at Twitch after previous chief marketing officer Kate Jhaveri exited this summer to become the NBA’s top marketing exec. News of Scott’s hire comes less than a month after Twitch launched a redesigned logo and site,
VidCon hired Carter Hansen, a founding executive at AwesomenessTV, as VP of programming to oversee conference programming and content for the internet-video events producer. In the newly created role, Hansen reports to VidCon GM Jim Louderback and will be based in Viacom’s Hollywood office. As part of overseeing programming worldwide for VidCon’s community, creator and
After two years of measuring Netflix viewing, Nielsen has now added Amazon Prime Video to the mix of subscription-streaming services it tracks — and with the same set of limitations. Nielsen’s SVOD Content Ratings originally launched in October 2017 with Netflix. According to the research firm, the addition of Amazon Prime Video measurement will let
Netflix, burning boatloads of cash with a projected $15 billion content budget for 2019, is adding to its debt load once again. On Monday (Oct. 21), Netflix announced plans to offer approximately $2.0 billion aggregate principal amount of junk bonds, in both U.S dollar and euro denominations. As of Sept. 30, Netflix reported $12.43 billion
Mina Kimes is preparing to take ESPN into a new frontier. The sports-media giant has launched a “SportsCenter” for Snapchat and tested baseball telecasts for kids. Now it’s hoping to set up shop in another media venue. Starting tomorrow, the Disney-backed company launches “ESPN Daily,” a weekday morning podcast that aims to tap its vast
Xandr, the AT&T ad-technology unit, has purchased a new company that helps advertisers use data to place commercials in front of the audiences most likely to want to watch them The AT&T division said Friday it had acquired clypd, a company that helps advertisers move forward in a growing desire by Madison Avenue to run
October 18, 2019 9:40AM PT AT&T is instituting a substantial price hike for its live TV streaming service AT&T TV Now: Customers who have subscribed to the service’s basic “Plus” package will see their bill go up by $15, to a total of $65 per month, starting next month. The telco has started to inform
After 11 years, Disney is pulling the plug on Disney Family Movies On Demand — with the service’s shutdown coming just days before the launch of the Mouse House’s Disney Plus. Disney Family Movies, which cost between $5-$10 per month, has been available via pay-TV providers in the U.S., including Comcast Xfinity, Charter Communications, Verizon
Los Angeles-based virtual reality startup AmazeVR has struck a deal with Atlas V and Felix & Paul Studios to distribute the studios’ immersive content on its platform. As part of its partnership with Atlas V, AmazeVR will be the first VR video platform to carry “Gloomy Eyes,” the animated zombie tale narrated by Collin Farrell
October 18, 2019 6:50AM PT Amazon has greenlit a new “All or Nothing” sports documentary series, this time following London-based soccer team Tottenham Hotspur. “All or Nothing: Tottenham Hotspur” will follow a year in the life of the team, charting the ongoing 2019-20 season. The squad made it to the final of the European Champions
Quibi, the short-form mobile TV service founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg, announced a pact with T-Mobile to be the official telecommunications partner for its April 2020 launch. T-Mobile will be the exclusive wireless distributor when Quibi launches next spring. However, the arrangement doesn’t mean only T-Mobile customers will be able to subscribe to Quibi: Anyone will
After vowing to press ahead more directly into the world of podcasts, NBC News is readying the launch of three additional audio shows centered around politics. “Article II: Inside Impeachment” will help listeners understand the impeachment process. The program, new episodes of which are slated to debut Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays as people head for
“Call of Duty” esports is officially headed for a city-based model. Publisher Activision Blizzard announced over the summer that the newly coined Call of Duty League will have a franchised, home-and-away structure immediately when it launches its inaugural season in early 2020. It’s set 12 teams in 11 cities, and the roster mania has already
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg went to Georgetown University Thursday to explain his views on freedom of expression, and how it influenced Facebook’s policies around dealing with controversial subjects, including political ads that include outright lies. “I’ve focused on building services to do two things: give people voice, and bring people together,” Zuckerberg said. In his
When “Moana” left Netflix on Dec. 20, parents of little kids let out a collective wail of despair on Twitter and Facebook parenting groups everywhere. The phrase “ruined Christmas” was pointedly used in the streamer’s direction — sometimes facetiously, sometimes with the reflected ire of a preschooler who had awakened one morning to find her
October 17, 2019 8:57AM PT The latest version of Nvidia’s Android TV streamer has found its way onto Amazon.com ahead of an official announcement. The new device features a more powerful processor as well as a new remote control. Nvidia didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The latest Nvidia Shield is being powered
When it comes to media properties, it doesn’t get much bigger than “Star Wars.” That sentiment certainly isn’t lost on Vince Zampella, CEO of Respawn Entertainment, the studio behind “Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.” The title, which follows Jedi Padawan Cal Kestis (voiced by Cameron Monaghan) after the events of “Episode III — Revenge of
There’s a lot riding on “Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.” The upcoming title from EA and Respawn is the first major single-player “Star Wars” video game since 2008’s “The Force Unleashed,” and is one of the most anticipated games of 2019. After years of multiplayer adventures, could “Fallen Order” be the title that brings the
October 17, 2019 7:00AM PT Katie Couric’s next assignment: Creating digital videos for People. Couric’s media company, Katie Couric Media is teaming with the Meredith-owned magazine to produce the weekly digital video series “#SeeHer Story,” that will feature short vignettes of female trailblazers and rulebreaks. The series is meant to celebrate the 100th anniversary of